The Fool's Journey Page 2

  The atarah is identical with the Shekinah both in her role at the head of the tree as the bride of God and at the foot in the kingdom of Malkuth, in other words, traversing the entirety of the tree, and the Shekinah - or Sophia - as the following chapters will show, is crucial to the journey of Tarot. The atarah is also the crown of Wisdom with which Solomon was crowned, by his mother, at his wedding – the seal of the mystical marriage.

  The esoteric tradition of the atarah forms part of an older tradition preceding Qabbalah, as do the teachings and practices of the Merkabah mysteries -(the mysteries of the divine chariot) which would seem to have been established in France before the ninth century, although they now have fallen largely into oblivion. Yet both traditions were used by Qabbalists. Qabbalists believed they were reviving old mystical teachings and certainly they made use of the literature and esoteric traditions of earlier mystical movements, for Jewish mysticism goes back long before the twelfth century. (Interestingly, earlier esoteric speculations were likewise strongly tinged with Gnosticism, while, through the apocryphal literature, links with India and Egypt are evidenced too in the earlier explosion of Jewish, Christian and pagan Gnostic and mystic sects. Early Gnostic schools had likewise drawn on a syncretistic heritage of Jewish, Greek, Mesopotamian, Iranian, Egyptian and Christian traditions.) In Qabbalah older Gnostic symbols reassert themselves, while both the mythical and mystical elements of Qabbalah are extremely strong - in contrast to orthodox tradition.

  Provence in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was a cradle of heresies, of people breaking out of the paths of established religion to discover new paths. One such path, I believe, was Tarot. Gleaning from the mythical and symbolic heritage, the cultural and religious influx and the surrounding spiritual movements - including Qabbalah, Tarot broke through all barriers and confined itself to none. Borderless, it brought all paths together and thus, in this intensely charged area, would inevitably have provoked the charge of heresy. For Tarot and its disciples to survive, secrecy would be essential.

  For in Provence at this very time arises the Holy war against heretics, alongside the Inquisition - which was established in 1233 specifically to stamp out the contagion of spiritual heresies. This was done with violence and enthusiastic thoroughness; so much so that, after the death of St. Francis, even the leaders of the ‘spirituals’ of the Franciscans, who earlier had maintained a foothold on the non-heretical side of the border, were being burned at the stake. In the latter half of the thirteenth century, from about 1250 (after the fall of Montségur), the danger to the Cathar perfecti had become acute and Catharism was itself largely driven underground. That Tarot, which would never have stood a chance of being regarded as anything but heretical, in order to survive would likewise need very quickly to go underground, is certain, and there it would have remained, in the hands of a minority, a secret and an oral tradition.

  Indeed if it is a legacy of the late thirteenth century, as seems likely, when Qabbalah - as well as the Inquisition, was already well under way, it probably never emerged above ground. Tarot is, after all, made up of a major and minor arcana - and arcana is the plural of arcanus, meaning hidden or secret.

  As most of what we know of the ‘heretical’ sects is from their enemies, not their followers, a scattering of individuals who did not flaunt their doctrines but who transmitted their teachings in secret and avoided the attention of potential persecutors, would pass unnoticed and unmentioned. That there is no written record of the origins of Tarot makes sense if it was indeed formed at this time in this atmosphere, by a small, clandestine group of survivors. Following the example of the stained glass windows, with times becoming increasingly dangerous, Tarot may have been used as a means of preserving and transmitting a mystical path, not with incriminating words, but by retaining ancient symbols in a picture book of spiritual truths, which, if perchance they were discovered, could hopefully be passed off as a decorative game. Only those who knew or recognized the meaning of the pictures could argue otherwise, -and to do so would be to invite the flames.

  Following the establishment of the Inquisition in thirteenth century Provence to root out spiritual heresy, there was a growing tendency in fourteenth century inquisitorial procedures to associate heresy with witchcraft and Devil worship. (This, strangely, is an air which has long since clung to Tarot, even down to the present day). With the victories of the ever spreading tentacles of the Inquisition, the burning of the last Cathars (about 1320) and the suppression of the spiritual movements, the time of tolerance and religious interchange was over. The door on new spiritual insights had closed, and with it the door of understanding of the esoteric meaning of Tarot was closed for centuries.

  The earliest surviving undisputed Tarot trumps, (the Visconti cards from Northern Italy), date from circa 1420-40. While this proves that we must go back to at least 1420-40 for the origin of Tarot, it by no means proves that Tarot did not exist before then. It would be folly to assume that some of the first Tarot cards created have been the very ones to survive. It is far more reasonable to suppose that the earliest cards would have vanished without trace, perhaps long before.

  Tarot appears abruptly and as if from nowhere in France and Italy in the early fifteenth century, leaving for historians many questions, but few answers. With its sudden emergence above ground Tarot, like chess before it, is shorn largely -though never completely of its mystical apparel. It becomes simply a popular game, though with a little of its heresy still retained in some Christian minds, for, as preached against in one sermon, it is a game ‘which takes a man to the depths of hell.’ Nevertheless, with the spiritual movements fading into uneasy memory, the esoteric lore inscribed in the illustrations remained largely ignored until the eighteenth century when Antoine Court de Gébelin recognized that this was no simple party game.

  Once recognized, the silent stream of esoteric teachings has continued to flow up to the present day. In the early nineteenth century Eliphas Lévi redeveloped the connection with Qabbalah, giving rise to new insights and a deeper understanding of Tarot. To this day Tarot symbolism is constantly being elaborated and new decks now are continually being introduced.

  Some are in keeping with the heart of Tarot, some are not. Yet throughout all, Tarot has remained a living symbolic tradition - open to new insights. What appertains to Tarot will remain, what does not will fall away over time as the followers of Tarot accept that which is helpful to understanding and interpretation of the life journey, while discarding that which is not. This includes my own theories and interpretations of Tarot.

  In previous books on Tarot and Qabbalah, the Tarot majors are usually aligned in Qabbalah with the twenty-two paths connecting the sefirot (paths 11-32, the first ten paths being the sefirot themselves). This is not the journey I have followed in this book. I do not claim, in following the route I have taken, that the other route is false. On the contrary the two routes are complementary. Just as there are many methods by which the sefirot can be grouped on the tree in Qabbalah, each equally valid and correct, each serving to elucidate different aspects and layers of meaning of the tree, likewise the Tarot atouts can be classified on more than one level without detracting from the insights of the alternative routes. A symbolic system like Tarot is such that, as you turn it about in your hands, different aspects are illuminated from different angles, and because of this new connections and new treasures are constantly being discovered and rediscovered on this continuous, living journey. Knowledge of the Tarot assigned to the sefirot and the associations this brings out can help in working the paths, for the latter paths are the subjective roads we must undertake in our own spiritual journey between the objective landmarks of the Tarot in the sefirot themselves.

  Finally I must point out that this is a book on Tarot not on Qabbalah. The Qabbalistic tree of life is a symbol, a mandala of one esoteric system which overlaps with and can help in the interpretation and illumination of the paths of other esoteric teachings (and in turn be illumined by them)
. My concern is with the wisdom and mysteries of the Tarot, but I have used the Qabbalah and any other system where appropriate, to help to elucidate the hidden mysteries within the Tarot. As all paths lead to the same goal eventually, it makes sense to compare and where paths converge, to share the light shed by one system onto another. This is, I believe, precisely what was happening in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Italy and Provence, where many traditions were brought together to illuminate each other, and where Tarot as we know it - though probably based on images far older, came to be. If, at the end of the day, my efforts help readers to gain more insight and understanding of the Tarot, than my intentions have been fulfilled.

  The earliest origins of Tarot are unknown, and what pictures constituted the earliest atouts we perhaps shall never know. Yet whether from ancient religion or more recently (relatively speaking) in the Middle Ages, in Tarot east meets west, the cross and the dance are united. From Indian sources to Celtic treasures, Babylonian and Greek myth to Christian, Sufi and Jewish mysticism, alchemy to Hermeticism, transcending all barriers and borders Tarot speaks a universal language; it is indeed the speech of the gods, telling of the living journey of the Fool.

  Part One: The Path of the Lightning Flash

  Chapter One: The Magician and Strength in Kether

  ‘Energy is eternal delight.’

  (Blake, the Marriage of Heaven & Hell)

  ‘Imagination is eternity.’

  (Blake, the Ghost of Abel.)

  The tree of life manifests itself in ten sefirot or emanations, arranged on three vertical pillars of manifestation. The central balancing pillar is known as the pillar of equilibrium. Taking the attributes of both masculine and feminine, or yin and yang, it represents both form and force in balance. It is at the head of this central balancing pillar that Kether, the first of the sefirot, is situated. Here, in the first sefirah, ‘within this primordial divine idea that precedes everything and embraces everything within itself,’[1] there lies hidden the two supreme roots, brought together by the divine will. Likewise, where Qabbalah and Tarot overlap, it is here, within Kether, that we find the equivalent concept of equilibrating force within Tarot: the two supreme roots: the cards of the Magician and of Strength.

  Kether is unity. Yet it is not an ultimate, absolute unity: the Nirvana of the Buddhists. Such unity is found only through the veils of Negative Existence, in the Unmanifest itself, the womb from which the unity of Kether is derived.

  This absolute unity beyond Kether is, as descriptive terms such as: ‘veils of negativity’ or ‘nothingness’ impart, unknowable – beyond anything that is comprehensible to us. It is no-thing that can be detailed, defined or numbered.

  Unity comes within the grasp of the known, or the knowable, only when we have posited the number one. Once we have posited a number, we have identified some-thing. - There is a label, a definition, and there is awareness; hence the placement of the Magician, the master of mystical consciousness, who, like Kether, is the light giving the power of comprehension. Yet we cannot grasp the idea of ‘one’ without simultaneously understanding the idea of more than one, that which is not present so that the one is only one and not more. Simply positing the number one, then, intimates the idea of others, or at least of one other: that which is more than one. There is, so to speak, over the figure One the shadow of, at least duality, if not of multiplicity. This is the unity of Kether.

  For Kether, like the Chinese concept of the Tao, contains within itself the possibility of all things. The Tao Teh Ching tells us:

  As the origin of heaven-and-earth, it is nameless:

  As “the Mother” of all things, it is nameable.

  So, as ever hidden, we should look at its inner essence:

  As always manifest, we should look at its outer aspects.

  These two flow from the same source, though differently named;

  And both are called mysteries.

  The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence.[2]

  This is of course describing the Tao. It could equally well be describing Kether. Yet, without in any way dividing its unity, according to the central concepts of Taoism, Tao is divided into a fundamental pair of opposites: yang, the masculine, positive force or celestial portion of the human soul, and yin, the feminine, negative or earthly portion of the human soul. The two aspects are represented flowing together in eternal harmony in the well-known Chinese symbol of Tai-Chi. 

  Similarly, placing Strength and the Magician in the unified force concept of Kether is not intended to imply that form and diversity belong here. On the contrary, by using the Qabbalah to illumine the Tarot, my intention is to show the unity of the concepts of force represented by these two cards, and the unity of dialogue between them, uniting them in the one conversation: the dialogue of life.

  Like Kether, both the Magician and Strength represent potency and power. Both figures can be seen with the horizontal figure 8, the lemniscate, above their heads or are shown, conversely, wearing hats in the design of the lemniscate. The lemniscate is the ancient symbol of the infinite, thus indicating both their eternal nature and their origins, like Kether, in the Unmanifest from which eternity has its being. As the anonymous author of ‘Meditations on the Tarot’ tells us:

  She [Strength] wears a hat similar to that of the Magician – in the form of a lemniscate. One could say that the two stand equally under the sign of rhythm – the respiration of eternity – the sign ∞; and that the two manifest two aspects of a single principle.[3]

  The single, unified principle inferred by the lemniscate however, also contains the mystery of the creative tensions of duality. For, like the Tai Chi, the lemniscate also connotes the rhythmic interaction of opposites flowing in continuous harmony, one into the other.

  As the first of the sefirot Kether is, then, allocated the number one. It is pure being, the Self-existent One, equated with the more transcendent form of God, Ehyeh, translated variously as ‘I am that I am, or, more simply, ‘I am,’ or ‘I Become.’ In Tarot the Magician too, as the great initiator, is allocated the number one and the letter aleph, the initial letter of the Hebrew alphabet, synonymous with the first birth: that of self-awareness. For the Magician is first encountered on the journey of self-awareness. He is the opening of the door.

  The first indicator to the meaning of the Magician’s card is, then, psychological. He unveils for us the blueprint of the journey. From the emergent steps of the ego consciousness in the child learning to use the word ‘I’ through to the ultimate goal of individuation, that is, self-realization of a more profound, self-existent ‘I’ which envelopes that of the conscious ego, the Magician is always in the background, consciously charting the branches of our freewill to become.

  There is a wide literature linking the Magician with those mythological gods who were simultaneously gods of revelation and guides of souls: Hermes (Latin: Mercurius), Odin and the Egyptian Thoth/Tehuti. These are apt analogues, for all these mythic gods were considered to be the god of magicians, or, as in the case of Thoth (three-times very-very-great, translated in the Graeco-Latin version as Hermes Trismegistus), the first and greatest of all magicians. In keeping with the Magician’s placement in Kether, Hermes/Mercurius and Thoth have all also been, at some point, considered to be the world-creating Nous itself.

  Thoth was the self-created and self-existent of Egyptian myth. Reminiscent of one of Kether’s titles: Ancient of Ancients, he was sometimes called ‘The Elder.’ Like our Tarot Magician who is about to initiate proceedings by separating and ordering the elements, it was Thoth who ordained the laws for the heavenly bodies and computed time and seasons; he also invented all arts and sciences. More importantly, Thoth was himself the Logos, the word which, when pronounced, resulted in the creation of the world.

  Words when released have a subtle force of their own to awaken minds and inspire motion. Words when pronounced inspire forms. It is here that we are in the heart of the Magician’s realm. For the Magician is the po
wer of thought. He conceives of and initiates, beginning with the performance: the journey through the play of life. He is the Grand Magus, the great master of illusions, images, thoughts, and imaginings. And he is the power of becoming: that which through the application of our own minds can come into being. The Magician posits the borders of our understanding. For all that lies within any possible worlds we are able to conceive or imagine, lies first within the imagination of our inner Magicians. What lies beyond the Magician’s imagination, the potential of the human Kether is, by the same token, beyond our individual realms of conception.

  Without the imagination of the Magician, nothing could be conceived, initially in the mind, eventually to be manifest into form, and without the force of the imagination - the card of Strength, nothing conceived could be made manifest.

  In Qabbalistic terms creation is the result of the gradual pouring forth, or emanation, of the pure, undivided force of Kether through the ten sefirot to manifest eventually into form in Malkuth. Comparatively, in Indian mythology the One becomes the many through the fragmentation of the god-head in a creative pouring forth (srstih), described as ‘an act of voluntary, dynamic will-to-be-more.’[4] In the Chaldean Oracles, although only One Mind embraces both, the Dyad’s seat is nevertheless with the Monad and it is from these two that creation bubbles forth.